Bodies (3 page)

“Him or her. As you say, it could be a woman. It's a fairly small
shoe, isn't it? It looks to me as if it could be some kind of jogging shoe.”

“That's what the experts thought. In which case the male and female versions are pretty much alike. The size, we thought, was about six or six and a half.”

“Interesting. You'd expect one of those muscle boys to have bigger feet than that.”

“Not necessarily. Often they're not particularly tall, or naturally big. Glamour boy in there only takes seven and a halfs.”

“Inside every muscle man there is a six-stone weakling crying to come out,” I pontificated. “And he shows through the feet. Right, I presume there'll be casts of all the interesting prints? Let's go into the studio.”

Now that there were fewer CID men around, and now that I could move around without holding my breath, I could get a better idea of Health and Vitality's studio. It was a good-sized room, perhaps thirteen feet or so by twenty-five, and though it was decorated in a nondescript white, colour was added by the blue satin drape that was hung over the far wall. In a pile near the fireplace were ten or twelve other coloured materials, no doubt alternative drapes. The fireplace itself, an early nineteenth-century job if my eye didn't deceive me, had been picked out in blue and white in a mock-Wedgwood sort of way, and no doubt it served as a “feature” for occasional poses. The floor was a nondescript lino, but again there were various rugs around, clean and spruce, that no doubt could be used for certain types of shot. There was a large window overlooking Windlesham Street, but it had a white drape pinned over it. Of furniture there was none, though I had registered a door outside that could possibly lead to a storeroom. Surely for some of the shots they might use a sofa, or chairs? The bareness of the room had meant that the models' clothes had been left in piles on the floor. The man had had a holdall, and had left a tracksuit carefully folded on top of it. The girl had left her clothes piled neatly on top of an
Evening Standard.
Both had registered, presumably, the slight film of dust on everything.

“Now, how did they die?” I asked.

“Bullets from a thirty-two automatic,” said Joplin, reeling it off from his notebook. “This boy here—”

He pointed to the lanky body behind the cameras.

“I think his name might be Herbert,” I said.

“It is. Dale Herbert. We've found his student card. He was shot twice. Apparently the first only got him in the shoulder. The girl was
also shot twice, though Doc thinks the first in fact killed her. Just finishing off the round, I suppose.”

“A man who knew how to handle a gun, then.”

“Certainly no novice. A man with real training, even if not necessarily a hired killer. You'll get a report on the bullets eventually, but ballistics suspect a rather elderly automatic. One of the bullets went through the girl, and we picked it up off the floor, so they've had a good look at it.”

“Right. Now, who are they?”

“The only one we're not sure of is the man. The model, I mean. There's no name on the holdall, and the only clothes are the track-suit, running shoes, boxer shorts and so on. We reckon he'd been at a track, or a gym. Oh, there is a birthday card in the holdall, with ‘Love from Debbie' on it.”

“Some birthday present
he's
had,” I commented. “What about the others? The cameraman I take it is Bob Cordle?”

“That's it. All the cameras and their boxes are labelled, and there's a bank card in his wallet. Dale Herbert seems to have been a student at the City of London Poly, by the way, so there shouldn't be any trouble tracing him. The girl's a student too, funnily enough.”

“Really?”

“That's right. Probably post-grad, I'd say, because she's twenty-four. Name of Susan Platt-Morrison. Apparently a student at Bedford College. There's also a letter in her handbag from ‘Mummy'—headed notepaper, address in the Thames Valley.”

“I see. Do you think Mummy in the Thames Valley knew she modelled for
Bodies?
No doubt we'll find that out before long. Well, we seem to be getting there. I suppose I'd better have my own look at the bodies before they're carted off.”

It wasn't something I ever liked doing. (Many policemen do, by the way—some in a completely abstract way which springs from the fact that murder cases are for us what high C's are for a tenor, others in a way that leaves no one in any doubt of the frank enjoyment they extract from the contemplation of violence and death.) Four bodies simultaneously was something new in my experience, apart from my one IRA bomb. These four had all died very quickly, that was clear, but three of them at least had had a second or two of terrified anticipation. Bob Cordle, I guessed, had been crouched behind his camera and had known nothing until the bullet entered his back. Dale Herbert seemed to have turned in the direction of the door, and was presumably shot second. He was—he had been—a long, scruffy,
amiable-looking youth. Bob Cordle was shortish, balding and potbellied, wearing a cardigan and old-fashioned grey flannels.

“There was a notebook in his jacket pocket,” said Joplin. “It looked interesting. The boys will let you have it as soon as they've done with it.”

“Good,” I said. “We may need it to identify the man, if Phil Fennilow doesn't know him.”

The models, it had to be presumed, had had longer to anticipate death: not long in real terms, but long enough to them. The girl was full-figured, light brown-haired, with what one guessed had been a very attractive face. It was heavily made up, as probably it had to be, even for that apostle of the natural,
Bodies
magazine. But the makeup was done skilfully, and there was no suggestion of the tart. I turned over the clothes, which, similarly, were smart and good, not smart and tart. I guessed at a girl who liked the good things of life, but was not extracting enough money out of the Thames Valley to buy them. The man was more difficult. Men always are, but particularly so in this case. Shorts and tracksuit and jogging shoes don't tell you much, and you could guess he was some kind of athlete from the body alone. The bag held the card Joplin had mentioned, a bodybuilding magazine and a jock strap. The body itself told one little, except that he had dedicated himself to making it beautiful.

“Mr. Anonymous,” I said. “Nothing but a collection of pectorals and biceps brachis.”

“You're not without pectorals and biceps brachis yourself,” said Joplin.

“Sorry. Was I moralizing? I mustn't get into the
Hamlet
syndrome every time I see a corpse. No doubt eventually the young man will acquire a name and a personality. Well then—four bodies and six shots, and nobody reported anything to the police at the time. Isn't it wonderful? Still, I suppose you could say that was Soho.”

“Soho isn't all crooks,” protested Joplin. “After all, it's fifty percent restaurants.”

“Whose proprietors take very good care not to get on the wrong side of the crooks,” I said. “They'll keep very quiet until we go asking—then they'll have to weigh up which side in the crime war they prefer to keep on the right side of.”

I drew back the drape from the window and looked along the street.

“Chinese opposite. Greek three doors down. I used to go there when I was on that Vice Squad investigation.”

“What a job!” commented Garry Joplin. “Talk about the little Dutch boy sticking his finger in the hole . . . ”

“You're not far wrong. What's on this side? I can't see.”

“I thought you might have noticed,” Joplin said, “what was next door to this place.”

“I was dropped at the door. The next door up looked rather like a brothel.”

“No, on the other side—this side, in fact. It's a strip joint called ‘Strip à la Wild West.' ”

“The mind boggles. Was it,” I asked delicately, “wild west girls or wild west boys who were stripping?”

“Girls. Nothing queer about that set-up.”

“Not that it makes any difference. I gather you're suggesting that the show would have included guns.”

“If you can go by the pictures outside. Guns
and
whips—which sound pretty much alike. If people in the vicinity had got used to hearing them . . . ”

“Quite. What's six more shots between friends? Only these were bullets not blanks . . . Of course somebody in the show might have noticed shots that weren't part of the act. I might slip next door and ask a few questions.”

“You take all the desirable parts of the job,” protested Joplin.

“There is
nothing,
” I said pontifically, “more anaphrodisiacal than backstage in a strip joint. And while I'm mortifying the flesh in that way, you can go along and have a word with Phil Fennilow. He looked as if he was beginning to feel better by the time I left him. He'll probably be able to identify Cordle and the Herbert boy, if he feels up to it, and he just may know the models.”

I stood looking around the studio.

“Those bloody cameras,” I said bitterly. “Probably-clicking up to the second he died, and they're not going to tell us a blind thing. Even if they were sound-recording they probably wouldn't either. Still—get the boys on to developing the film as a matter of priority, will you?”

“Right,” said Joplin.

“I'm off to the Wild West.”

The Wild West was actually off duty at that particular moment, but it announced its first show for the lunch-time trade at one-fifteen, which was hopeful. One went—as one so often does in these places—down five or six dreary steps, and then came to an improvised box office. The black and white publicity stills on either side of the doors
showed girls in various states of undress, but the prevailing motifs were Texan hats, riding boots, holsters, guns and whips. A typical pose depicted a dark-haired model in a G-string, sitting on a stool, Stetson-hatted, with a holster slung around her navel, flourishing a whip above her head. The inspiration seemed more
Blue Angel
than John Ford, but there was something rather half-hearted about the stripper, as if she didn't mean you any harm. No one ever doubted that Marlene Dietrich meant you harm.

I descended the steps to that Soho Hades. The box office was shut, and a locked door stopped me from going further. I banged on it, and after a few moments heard footsteps.

“I'm not open yet,” said a voice through the door, which had opened a fraction. “It's half an hour to the show, and my heavy's not arrived yet. Come back in twenty minutes.”

“Police,” I said, pushing my card through the crack.

“My, you boys in blue do like the boots and whip routine, don't you?” He was being facetious. The door had opened further, and I saw he was a small cock sparrow of a man, formed for being facetious. “Just my joke, Superintendent, though we
do
have the pleasure of entertaining some of your boys in their private capacity from time to time. Colin Burney. My friends call me Col. What can me and my girls do for you? Is it the business next door?”

“Ah, you know about it, do you?”

“Give me credit, mate. Wiv about fifteen police cars having come and gone in the course of the morning, it doesn't take much up 'ere to get the idea that something's happened.”

“And do you know what's happened?”

“One of my girls did talk to one of your Detective PCs she happens to be friendly with. All he'd say was ‘multiple murder.' Sounds like something the press could work up an interest in. A good story like that can't be bad for trade. Still, I'm surprised it should have happened at Health and Vitality. Not at all good for the old image. Was it by any chance a shooting?”

“Yes, it was. How did you know?”

“Well, most of my girls are here . . . Oh, here's another. Hurry up, Angie—you're late, girl. Don't expect me to lace up your boots . . . Well, as I say, they're down there, dressing like, and they was talking about all this police activity, and Karen said . . . would you like to talk to Karen, though? Hear it from her in her own words, like?”

“I would, yes.”

“Anything to oblige the law. You never know when they might come in handy. Karen, love!”

The cry was taken up by female voices behind another door, and after a minute or two Karen appeared. She looked about as much like a Scandinavian as Ingrid Bergman looked like a Spanish peasant in
For Whom the Bell Tolls.
She was raven-haired, fleshy, and heavily made up. Any touch of Scandinavian there had been in her life had been from Norwegian sailors. Still, she seemed a willing enough girl, if several years older than her photograph outside the place had suggested.

“Yes, well, like I was just telling the girls, it was last night,” she said, clutching around her an off-white dressing-gown stained all over with stage make-up. “It was the six-fifteen performance, and I'd done my opening routine . . . You haven't seen the show, I suppose?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Well, I'd better explain,” she said, putting her hands on her ample hips and thrusting out her bosom professionally. “I start the show with a long routine on my stool—like the pic outside. Lots of shooting and whip-cracking and that, and quite artistic, though I do say it myself. Then I go off and the others come on—
filling in,”
she hissed,
sotto voce,
for the doorway through which she had come was filled with dressing-gowned drabs, who were listening to the recital with what I took to be the lethargy of their tribe. “They do various acts in ones and twos, and I don't come on till the finarly. That gives me time for a fag, to adjust my make-up, and put on my costume, which is a fringed suede Annie Oakley sort of skirt—all fringe, actually, and nothing on underneath. Then I come on for the big number that ends the show, with all of us on stage, and me in the centre twirling the whip over everyone's head, and them all firing shots around the room—the theatre—and all of us singing, and the pianist wishing he'd got a few extra fingers. It's a cracking number.”